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2 | Contributed Modules in Perl Core |
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3 | A Social Contract about Artistic Control |
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4 | |
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5 | What follows is a statement about artistic control, defined as the ability |
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6 | of authors of packages to guide the future of their code and maintain |
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7 | control over their work. It is a recognition that authors should have |
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8 | control over their work, and that it is a responsibility of the rest of |
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9 | the Perl community to ensure that they retain this control. It is an |
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10 | attempt to document the standards to which we, as Perl developers, intend |
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11 | to hold ourselves. It is an attempt to write down rough guidelines about |
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12 | the respect we owe each other as Perl developers. |
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13 | |
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14 | This statement is not a legal contract. This statement is not a legal |
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15 | document in any way, shape, or form. Perl is distributed under the GNU |
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16 | Public License and under the Artistic License; those are the precise legal |
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17 | terms. This statement isn't about the law or licenses. It's about |
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18 | community, mutual respect, trust, and good-faith cooperation. |
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19 | |
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20 | We recognize that the Perl core, defined as the software distributed with |
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21 | the heart of Perl itself, is a joint project on the part of all of us. |
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22 | >From time to time, a script, module, or set of modules (hereafter referred |
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23 | to simply as a "module") will prove so widely useful and/or so integral to |
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24 | the correct functioning of Perl itself that it should be distributed with |
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25 | Perl core. This should never be done without the author's explicit |
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26 | consent, and a clear recognition on all parts that this means the module |
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27 | is being distributed under the same terms as Perl itself. A module author |
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28 | should realize that inclusion of a module into the Perl core will |
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29 | necessarily mean some loss of control over it, since changes may |
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30 | occasionally have to be made on short notice or for consistency with the |
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31 | rest of Perl. |
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32 | |
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33 | Once a module has been included in the Perl core, however, everyone |
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34 | involved in maintaining Perl should be aware that the module is still the |
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35 | property of the original author unless the original author explicitly |
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36 | gives up their ownership of it. In particular: |
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37 | |
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38 | 1) The version of the module in the core should still be considered the |
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39 | work of the original author. All patches, bug reports, and so forth |
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40 | should be fed back to them. Their development directions should be |
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41 | respected whenever possible. |
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42 | |
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43 | 2) Patches may be applied by the pumpkin holder without the explicit |
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44 | cooperation of the module author if and only if they are very minor, |
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45 | time-critical in some fashion (such as urgent security fixes), or if |
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46 | the module author cannot be reached. Those patches must still be |
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47 | given back to the author when possible, and if the author decides on |
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48 | an alternate fix in their version, that fix should be strongly |
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49 | preferred unless there is a serious problem with it. Any changes not |
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50 | endorsed by the author should be marked as such, and the contributor |
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51 | of the change acknowledged. |
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52 | |
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53 | 3) The version of the module distributed with Perl should, whenever |
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54 | possible, be the latest version of the module as distributed by the |
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55 | author (the latest non-beta version in the case of public Perl |
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56 | releases), although the pumpkin holder may hold off on upgrading the |
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57 | version of the module distributed with Perl to the latest version |
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58 | until the latest version has had sufficient testing. |
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59 | |
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60 | In other words, the author of a module should be considered to have final |
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61 | say on modifications to their module whenever possible (bearing in mind |
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62 | that it's expected that everyone involved will work together and arrive at |
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63 | reasonable compromises when there are disagreements). |
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64 | |
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65 | As a last resort, however: |
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66 | |
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67 | 4) If the author's vision of the future of their module is sufficiently |
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68 | different from the vision of the pumpkin holder and perl5-porters as a |
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69 | whole so as to cause serious problems for Perl, the pumpkin holder may |
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70 | choose to formally fork the version of the module in the core from the |
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71 | one maintained by the author. This should not be done lightly and |
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72 | should *always* if at all possible be done only after direct input |
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73 | from Larry. If this is done, it must then be made explicit in the |
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74 | module as distributed with Perl core that it is a forked version and |
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75 | that while it is based on the original author's work, it is no longer |
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76 | maintained by them. This must be noted in both the documentation and |
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77 | in the comments in the source of the module. |
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78 | |
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79 | Again, this should be a last resort only. Ideally, this should never |
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80 | happen, and every possible effort at cooperation and compromise should be |
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81 | made before doing this. If it does prove necessary to fork a module for |
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82 | the overall health of Perl, proper credit must be given to the original |
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83 | author in perpetuity and the decision should be constantly re-evaluated to |
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84 | see if a remerging of the two branches is possible down the road. |
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85 | |
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86 | In all dealings with contributed modules, everyone maintaining Perl should |
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87 | keep in mind that the code belongs to the original author, that they may |
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88 | not be on perl5-porters at any given time, and that a patch is not |
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89 | official unless it has been integrated into the author's copy of the |
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90 | module. To aid with this, and with points #1, #2, and #3 above, contact |
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91 | information for the authors of all contributed modules should be kept with |
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92 | the Perl distribution. |
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93 | |
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94 | Finally, the Perl community as a whole recognizes that respect for |
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95 | ownership of code, respect for artistic control, proper credit, and active |
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96 | effort to prevent unintentional code skew or communication gaps is vital |
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97 | to the health of the community and Perl itself. Members of a community |
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98 | should not normally have to resort to rules and laws to deal with each |
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99 | other, and this document, although it contains rules so as to be clear, is |
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100 | about an attitude and general approach. The first step in any dispute |
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101 | should be open communication, respect for opposing views, and an attempt |
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102 | at a compromise. In nearly every circumstance nothing more will be |
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103 | necessary, and certainly no more drastic measure should be used until |
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104 | every avenue of communication and discussion has failed. |
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105 | |
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106 | -- |
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107 | Version 1.2. By Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) and the perl5-porters. |
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108 | |
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